


Ghost Hunt UK: The Magnus House

by EvaBelmort



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Art by Grace, Audiofic by Rory, F/F, Gen, apologies to any actual historical figures i may have maligned, canon-typical Martin pining, i blame Jonah Magnus, various other characters - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26374075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvaBelmort/pseuds/EvaBelmort
Summary: When Georgie agreed to join Melanie for her revamped Ghost Hunt UK show, she was expecting long nights recording static in dark abandoned buildings, trying to look creeped out for the cameras, and having a fun spooky time with her girlfriend and their team. Her friend Jon gets them an invitation to film at some supposedly-haunted manor house out in the country, and it's an opportunity too good to refuse. Nobody on the paranormal circuit has even heard of this place, and it could be their big break!
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Melanie King & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 14
Kudos: 106
Collections: Rusty Quill Big Bang 2020





	Ghost Hunt UK: The Magnus House

**Author's Note:**

> My fill for the 2020 RQBB. A thousand thanks to my fantastic partners [Grace](https://ggracee.tumblr.com) and [Rory](https://uppastmybedtimereading.tumblr.com/), for their wonderful art and audiofic respectively. Grace's art can be found in the end notes, for spoiler reasons.

  
  


**March 3rd 2018  
09:30am**

****

****

Georgie forced her eyes open as someone shook her shoulder. “Wha-” She blinked groggily, propping herself up on one elbow. Melanie was already dressed, her choppy black bob neat and her eyeliner sharp. 

“Oh, come onnn,” Georgie groaned, flopping back down dramatically. “It’s too early, why are you like this?”

“Because unlike some people I went to bed early last night.” Melanie grinned down at her. “And anyway, it’s half-nine, stop moaning like it’s still dark out. Here!” and she waved a steaming mug under Georgie’s nose.

Georgie grumbled some more, but she sat up and took the mug, cradling it close and breathing in the pleasant scent of her favourite Russian Caravan tea. 

“C’mon, sleepyhead, eggs?” 

Georgie sighed her way out of bed and to the kitchen, letting Melanie’s enthusiasm carry her. It was really good to see her so upbeat, Georgie mused, drinking her tea slowly as Melanie made scrambled eggs and toast. 

  


  


**11:30am**

Georgie started the van, Melanie humming softly under her breath in the passenger seat. 

They picked up Jon first, since he was closest, and he climbed into the back with a warm “Morning Georgie,” for her and a slightly stiffer “Hello,” for Melanie. He looked decently put-together for Jon, his dark hair neatly braided, wearing a collared shirt and a sweater vest like an academic cliche. 

Melanie smiled at him broadly, and Jon actually stopped dead, seatbelt pulled halfway across his chest. “Uh-”

“Quit looking so panicked,” Melanie told him cheerfully. “I’m in a good mood, alright? And it’s partly your fault, so you can just deal with it.”

“Oh! Well, you’re welcome, I suppose.” He still seemed a little awkward, but he smiled back at her tentatively. 

Georgie found herself grinning, because two of her favourite people were getting along for once, and it was a nice day and they had a really good spooky house to get to.

They picked up Martin next, and Melanie hopped into the back to let him have the front seat for the extra leg room. He looked as excited as a kid on his way to the seaside, and Georgie laughed a little. “Relax, intern. It’s going to be hours yet.”

Martin’s freckled face coloured a little but he took a breath and settled back into the seat. “So, uh, how is everybody?”

“We’re good,” Melanie said brightly.

“I’m fine, thank you Martin.” Jon said cordially, “although I’m glad I’m not sharing a car with chipper Melanie all the way there, she might make us play Eye Spy or something.”

Melanie laughed. “Nah, just make everybody sing along to the Best of Queen album.”

Georgie could hear the faint smile in Jon’s tone as he replied, “Oh, well, in that case perhaps I could fit in the back.”

They pulled up outside Sarah’s apartment block, and Melanie trotted over to push the buzzer. 

After a couple of minutes she came back, looking concerned. “No answer. She definitely had the right day, yeah?”

Georgie nodded, fishing out her phone. “Yeah, she confirmed it with me and everything. Hang on, I’ll text her-”

She jumped as there was a sharp knock on the other window.

Martin wound it down. Sarah poked her head in. “Train was late, sorry. Give me five minutes to grab my shit and I’ll be back.”

“Oh, no worries!” Georgie replied, relaxing from the slight shock. “We’ve got some time.”

Sarah nodded and headed into her apartment building. She was as good as her word, and came down five minutes later. She’d changed into black cargo pants and a grey t-shirt, and with her hair just starting to grow out of its buzz cut she looked almost military. She put her bag carefully in the back, then climbed into the van on Melanie’s other side. “I’m probably going to nap on the way. I was down visiting my folks, and it’s a long ride back.”

Georgie winced sympathetically. “We’ll try to keep it down. And thanks again, we appreciate you cutting your trip short for this.”

Sarah shrugged. “I love my parents, but after a solid week of them treating me like a bloody child, I was ready to chew my own foot off, you know?” 

When they pulled up at Danny’s place, he and Tim were waiting outside with the rest of the equipment.

Georgie had been worried about the logistics of taking Jon along when her van only seated five, but luckily for them Danny’s older brother had a car, a free weekend, and a sense of adventure. 

Georgie knew Tim pretty well, since he and Danny were so close, and she liked him - he tended to flirt indiscriminately, but not in a creepy way, and not with anyone who wasn’t interested. He also got along pretty well with Jon, which had been kind of a surprise until she realised Tim turned the flirting right off around Jon and settled into something more like the way he acted with Danny. Jon was a lot like a cat - prickly, standoffish, and astoundingly soft once he decided to trust you. 

They tossed it back and forth a bit, then decided that it made sense for the Ghost Hunt team to all be in the van together, since that way they could catch Sarah up on the way, talk through a bit of strategy. It also meant Jon could navigate for Tim, and Georgie would just follow Tim’s car.

Martin was sitting quietly in the passenger seat when Georgie settled into the front and did a quick final check, running down the equipment list in her head. She turned the key and her sturdy old van grumbled to life, and then she gave a wave to Tim and he pulled out in his little silver coupe.

The drive wasn’t too bad once they got clear of the city traffic, and all Georgie had to do was keep track of Tim’s car. He was being nice about it, too: indicating well before the turn, stopping for yellow lights so that they wouldn’t get separated.

In the back, Danny and Melanie were going over the floor plans Jon had given them, showing Sarah where they hoped to set up.

Sarah whistled when she saw the layout. “That is an impressive pile of house. And you said this bloke your friend knows can get us in?”

“Jon says it’s managed by some sort of trust,” Georgie called back over her shoulder, “but the guy we’re going to meet is the family heir and therefore technically the owner.”

Glancing at Danny and Melanie’s heads bent close together over the map, Georgie smiled to herself. It really _was_ a nice day. Things had been a bit rough for Melanie since her old Ghost Hunt UK team had fallen apart over… well, Melanie hadn’t been very forthcoming on what exactly had happened in the old Cambridge Military Hospital, but it had been bad enough that most of the team had quit the paranormal scene altogether. The only one still around, Melanie’s old co-host Andy Cain, was now doing a podcast interviewing other investigators.

Georgie had been sympathetic, and hadn’t pushed. She was curious, but she also knew more than enough about the kinds of things you didn’t want to talk about, because that meant admitting that they were real. 

When Melanie had gotten herself back together and decided she wanted to restart Ghost Hunt, Georgie had tentatively offered to join the team - she loved her little podcast, but listening to Melanie talk about field work made it sound incredible, and she thought maybe she’d like to have a few harmless encounters of her own.

Melanie had agreed immediately, and laughed when Georgie was surprised. Her immediate enthusiasm made more sense when Georgie saw the lukewarm response to Melanie’s posts. Nobody on the paranormal investigation forums they both frequented knew what had gone wrong with Ghost Hunt either, but the community was scared enough to steer well clear. 

In the end, the only genuinely interested responses had been from a couple of newcomers to the scene: Danny Stoker and Martin Blackwood. 

Georgie had been the one to call up Sarah Baldwin, who was an excellent sound tech but had trouble finding regular gigs because her total lack of interest in human interactions made a lot of people uncomfortable.

Georgie had _not_ expected Melanie to ask her to co-host, especially when Danny was standing right there looking like a cover model. But Danny said he actually preferred being behind the camera where possible, and as he pointed out, Georgie did have a lot more experience talking about the paranormal. 

Martin had just shrugged nervously, and said he didn’t really have a lot of experience at either, but he’d been pretty game at the first two places they’d gone to, not baulking at heavy lifting or cobwebbed basements. He was also deeply earnest when trying to talk to ghosts, which had impressed Georgie - most people were a bit awkward the first few times they tried asking an empty dark room to say something for the recorder, and given how self-conscious Martin was about everything else, she’d definitely not expected how completely he threw himself into it.

Once Sarah had gone to sleep, cheek pillowed on a folded jumper, Danny and Melanie kept them entertained by quietly reading out bits of the House’s history. Jon had emailed them everything he had on the place from Elias - there wasn’t a lot online, apparently the family were pretty set on keeping themselves private. 

“Apparently,” Danny murmured, voice pitched low and dramatic, “there were rumours that Jonah Magnus was into black magic. And the night he died he sent all his servants home early and locked the doors. His mutilated corpse was found the next day. The doors were all still locked - they had to break one down to get in.”

Melanie whistled appreciatively. “That is some excellent horror story nonsense.”

Martin laughed. “You don’t think he was murdered by demons?”

Melanie shrugged. “I’m just saying, if he was that paranoid, he was probably into something dodgy and that’s what got him killed. Sounds like he knew someone was out to get him. Also, the locked room mystery thing is way less impressive when you consider the time period.”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed, “forensics back in the day wasn’t exactly great. There’s probably a dozen ways somebody could have gotten in and out of the house without leaving a trace, or at least one they could detect two hundred years ago.”

“Jesus,” Melanie muttered, leaning over Danny’s shoulder to see the laptop. “In 1918, the housekeeper lost it, poisoned all the servants, and then stabbed herself.”

“Well,” Georgie offered after a moment’s silence, “Jon wasn’t kidding about the ‘tragic history’ of the place.”

“So, that’s good for us, right?” Martin asked.

“More likely to be haunted than if everybody died peacefully in their beds, anyway,” Melanie agreed pragmatically. 

“Huh, speaking of,” Danny put in, “‘A visitor to the house in 1865 described the persistent feeling of being watched, and complained of nightmares of people staring at him. On the sixth morning of his stay, he was found dead in his bed. The official verdict was apoplexy.’ Which was a catch-all term for ‘catastrophic brain failure’ back in the day.” Danny huffed. “Okay guys, we’re definitely only staying one night, and I for one am not going to sleep.”

They stopped for lunch in a small village along the way, sturdy pub fare. Jon and Tim seemed to have enjoyed their drive too; when they rejoined the group they were having a friendly argument over the merits of various movie adaptations of books they’d both read.

After about fifteen minutes, Sarah ducked outside, packet of cigarettes in hand. Georgie noticed Jon staring after her, gnawing absently on his thumbnail, and elbowed him in the ribs. He startled, and straightened up, looking embarrassed.

Tim raised an eyebrow, leaning in. “Is there... some history that we should be aware of?”

Jon blinked at him, and then laughed ruefully. “Ah, well... not in the way that you mean. I quit smoking last year, and it’s a bit… difficult, sometimes. It’s worse when I’m stressed.”

“Is- Is everything okay?” Martin asked, staring at Jon with soft puppy-dog eyes.

“Oh, I’m fine, I just- I’m really hoping that there’ll be something useful for my research in Jonah Magnus’s collection. And that I can convince Elias to get it catalogued, maybe even digitised. I honestly have no idea why none of the previous family members considered donating it if they didn’t care about it, but he says that Jonah was... a bit of an eccentric and the family didn’t want their reputation getting tarnished by association.”

“Is that posh code for ‘spends his weekends summoning demons’?” Danny asked archly. “Because seriously, I’m a little worried. I thought we were supposed to steer clear of hostile presences. That was in the ‘Ghost-Hunting 101’ section of every forum and messageboard I’m on.”

Melanie sighed. “Yeah, and it’s good advice, too. But nobody’s ever done this place before, and an exclusive shoot at a site with this kind of history? If we get some decent results, this could be our big break.”

There was a collective series of nods around the table, and they all started finishing up so that they could get back on the road.

“So,” Martin said casually, sitting in the passenger seat of Georgie’s van. “Tim seems nice. And good-looking, too.”

“Well, he is Danny’s brother,” Georgie replied absently,checking to make sure she could still see Tim’s car. “Actually, we should ask if he’d be willing to show up on camera, Danny’s fans would love it.”

“Right, yeah, that would be good,” Martin agreed flatly.

Georgie risked taking her eyes off the road long enough to glance over at him and sighed. “This better not be about Jon.”

“W-What? What about Jon?”

Danny leaned up against the back of Georgie’s seat and put in, “Martin? I won’t be offended if you hit on my brother. I’ve been reliably informed that he’s hot.”

“Very hot,” Melanie chimed in. “Did you know he kayaks?”

“But,” Danny went on firmly, “I will be offended if you’re a dick to him because you have a crush on Jon.”

Martin swallowed hard. “I-Um. Okay.”

“Seriously, if you thought memorising how he likes his tea and saving him the good biscuits and sighing after him whenever he leaves the room was being subtle? Really not,” Melanie added drily.

“Oh.” He took a shaky breath. “Does- does everyone know?”

“Probably everybody except Jon,” Georgie said, wry and fondly exasperated. “ _He_ won’t notice unless you actually _tell_ him.”

“R-right. So- you. Um. Is that why you put him in the other car?”

Georgie snorted. “No, I just try not to trap him in enclosed spaces with Melanie. Although I’m actually impressed - you guys didn’t argue at all today.”

“Oi,” Melanie protested. “I may not understand the mysterious supernatural phenomenon that causes otherwise sane people to fancy that snobby little nerd, but I’ve got nothing against him.”

Danny started to snicker under his breath. 

“Right,” Georgie said, managing not to laugh by an effort of will. “I get it, you guys just communicate best by arguing.”

“Ugh.” Melanie’s eyeroll was almost audible. “He just- he gets that _tone_ sometimes, you know? And I have a sudden burning need to prove him wrong... Anyway, right now he’s responsible for us getting this marvellous opportunity, and I try not to be a complete asshole.”

Danny nodded solemnly. “Jon is our new favourite person.”

Melanie giggled. “I wouldn’t go that far…”

“Actually... “ Danny hummed thoughtfully. “Do you think _Jon_ would agree to be on camera? He does ‘serious academic’ pretty well when he needs to, and if we can’t get the owner of the house to give us a bit of a history talk, Jon would be a good choice. It’s always less impressive when it’s just us reading it out.”

“Yeah, probably not,” Georgie answered. “He’s not exactly subtle with how he feels about ghost hunters.”

“True,” Danny shrugged, “but maybe if I put it to him as just explaining the actual history of the house?”

“Good luck,” Melanie muttered, shaking her head. 

  
  


****

**3:00pm**

They stopped to get petrol at the last town before the house.

Georgie flicked the blinker on early, and Tim waved an arm out his window in acknowledgement, and she saw him pull over a little way down the road, but he and Jon didn’t get out. Georgie sighed, climbing down and arching her back until her spine popped. Tim’s car, she thought with a faint twinge of envy, probably had decent mileage to go with its functional suspension. “You lot want anything? I’m buying all of the caffeine.”

“Something chocolate with peanuts?” Sarah asked, climbing out of the van and stretching sleepily, pack of cigarettes in hand.

Martin shrugged, “Uh, yes to all of the above? I’m just going to-” He tipped his head in the direction of the bathrooms.

“Don’t worry about that, half my backpack is full of snacks,” Danny pointed out, as he and Melanie also got out to stretch their legs. 

“You know they double the prices,” Melanie agreed, scowling. 

Georgie shrugged and headed into the little store to pay for fuel and buy overpriced drinks. Behind her, Danny and Melanie leaned against the van, continuing their discussion of whether they should take the obvious ‘evil old man’ tack, or maybe try something about Jonah Magnus being eccentric and misunderstood. 

When Georgie walked back out with her arms full of caffeinated beverages, she saw a stranger leaning against the wall next to Sarah, both of them smoking. He was tall, dressed all in black with his hair dyed to match, though his roots were showing. 

Next to him Sarah looked tiny, and Georgie was just considering a good excuse to go over there when Sarah dropped her cigarette, crushed it under her boot, and wandered towards her. She took the bag of energy drinks and soda without a word, leaving Georgie to balance the tray of probably-terrible cheap coffees, and stalked off towards the van. 

The man made no move to follow her, though he did turn to stare at Georgie as he took another drag on his cigarette. He had tattoos on his knuckles. Georgie stared back coolly, until he blew out a stream of smoke and looked away, then she strode to the van and got in, handing the coffees to Martin.

Once they were all settled, Georgie said, “Hey, what was that all about? Scruffy goth dude, I mean.”

Sarah snorted. “He said he heard us talking about Magnus House. Apparently it’s a terrible idea, we should go hang out in Highgate Cemetery with all the other amateurs, don’t go onto the moors at night, etcetera.”

“Did he give you a crucifix and tell you your soul was in danger?” Melanie leaned over Danny to peer out the van window. “Ah, damnit! He’s gone. We should have gotten _that_ on tape! I’ve never actually been warned by a local before.”

Georgie laughed. “It wouldn’t be any good anyway, people would think it was scripted.”

“Yeah, fair.” She sighed, settling back into her seat as they drove on. 

Danny made a thoughtful noise. “He’s still there, he’s got a van too, beaten-up old blue thing. I wonder if he was actually a local, or if he was warning off the competition.”

“That would be a pretty weird coincidence,” Martin said, frowning. “I searched through all the forums and messageboards you guys had on that list, and nobody’s ever mentioned this place.”

“We are _sure_ it’s haunted, right?” Danny asked, half-laughing. “I mean, Jon doesn’t seem like the practical joke type, but we don’t actually know Mr Lord of the Manor. Uh. He is actually on the level, right? Georgie?”

There was a long silence. Georgie could feel them all staring at her. She shrugged, not taking her eyes off the road. “Look, Elias Bouchard is a real person, direct descendant of the original Magnuses, and next in line to inherit the house. I did some research,”

“A cursory google,” Melanie put in, amused.

“Fine, I did some googling, whatever. Anyway, he checks out. I drew the line at actually _reading_ tabloid articles, but I skimmed some headlines - apparently he was a bit of a lush, and his family sent him to rehab or something? Anyway, nothing’s made the papers in a couple of years, so I guess he’s gone straight now.” 

She shrugged again. “As far as the rest of it, Jon showed me some of the emails, and they’re sent from a Magnus Foundation email account, which is some kind of organisation the Magnus family set up to manage some charity they run, and also manage a few historic buildings that they own, Magnus House included. From what I saw, this guy knows _everything_ about the family history and the house. So, either somebody who works at the Foundation is pulling a _really_ weird and convoluted joke, or Lord of the Manor Junior had an epiphany in rehab and decided family history research was his true calling.”

“Well, there are definitely worse things for a fucked-up rich kid to fixate on than his great-granddad’s ghost story collection,” Sarah put in.

“Folktales,” Martin corrected. 

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Jon’s not here, Martin, we can call them ghost stories. I can even say the word ‘spooky’ without getting lectured.”

  
  


****

**4:00pm**

They pulled up to the house, stopping briefly to get some shots of the imposing building with the late afternoon sun behind it, making it loom above them.

“Hmm. Would you describe that as ‘spooky?” Georgie asked, eyeing Jon sidelong as he gazed up at the narrow windows and reddish brick.

He actually didn’t notice, apparently lost in thought, but Danny snickered. “I’d describe it as Elizabethan, and in pretty good nick. You said it was listed as historic?”

He nudged Jon, who startled slightly, turning towards them. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s listed, right? This place, I mean.” Danny jerked his head towards the house.

“Oh, right. Yes, definitely. Apparently they’re not quite sure how old it is - built in the late 16th century, but possibly incorporating parts of an older building, and there have been additions since then, mostly in the 18th century. Elias said that beyond getting in electricity and modern plumbing there’s been very little done to the place in the last hundred years, though.”

Danny hummed thoughtfully. “Elias know a lot about houses?”

Jon shrugged. “I think he knows a fair bit about _this_ house, since it’s going to be his.”

“Is that my cue?” The smooth, warmly amused voice made a couple of them startle, and they all turned. 

Leaning up against the massive front door was a pale figure, hard to see in the deep shadow cast by the lintel. The person stepped forward, resolving into a brunet man in grey slacks and a white shirt. He looked them over curiously, and then smiled. “Welcome to Magnus House, and thank you for coming. I’m Elias Bouchard.” His eyes settled on Jon, and his smile widened. “Hello, Jon. I must say, it’s lovely to finally meet you.”

Jon shifted awkwardly, but stepped forward to take his hand when Elias offered it. “Ah, you too.” He paused for a moment, then turned and made introductions. “So, uh, this is Georgie Barker and Melanie King, they host Ghost Hunt, and these are their crew, Danny Stoker, Martin Blackwood, and Sarah Baldwin. And this is Danny’s brother Tim, who, um…”

“Had a free weekend, so he offered to help drive and carry heavy things because he thought it sounded cool.” Tim finished cheerfully. “Nice to meet you.”

Elias chuckled. “Well, I hope the night doesn’t disappoint.” He shook Tim’s hand, and then Danny’s, and then was about to offer it to Georgie when she said uncertainly, “Uh, is there somewhere else we should park? Sorry, I just realised, we didn’t see your car as we came up.”

“Oh, not to worry. My car is in the old stables around the side there, they were converted into a garage shortly after the family gave up keeping horses.” He shrugged, “But you can leave yours here. We aren’t expecting anyone else, and I doubt you want to carry all of your equipment the length of the house.”

“Oh, thanks.” Georgie eyed the massive front door. “Yeah, none of it’s particularly heavy but there’s a fair bit of stuff.”

Elias rubbed his hands together. “Well, on that note, why don’t we get you and all of your things inside, and I’ll show you around before we lose the light? The electricity can be a little temperamental, so it’ll be easier if we don’t turn on anything we don’t need. I understand you prefer to film at night?”

Danny nodded. “Yeah, and don’t worry, most of the places we’ve filmed were abandoned, so we’re set up to use our own power anyway.”

“Oh, excellent. I confess I was a little concerned that the old wiring might not be able to handle a lot of extra work. Well, come on in.” He pushed the door, and it swung without a sound, opening into a large foyer. There was an impressive staircase opposite them with an elegant wrought iron balustrade, and the room itself was panelled in dark wood. They filed in, turning to look around, getting a feel for the place.

A large painting on the left wall stared down at them broodingly: an older white man in a grey suit, sharp-featured and stern, with a neatly-trimmed beard. Tim whistled softly. “He looks friendly. Is that your many-times-great uncle?”

Elias chuckled. “That’s Jonah, yes. I’ve been told there’s some resemblance, although I’m not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.” 

They all sidled up to look. There was a metal plaque on the frame, with something on it in Latin. “Audio. Vigilo. Opperior.” Martin read out tentatively, being the tallest.

“Roughly: I listen, I watch, I wait,” Jon offered quietly, studying the painting. He glanced over at Elias. “You do have very similar eyes.”

Elias shrugged. “They run in the family, I’m afraid.”

“So, is that the family motto?” Danny snapped a few pictures of the portrait. “I mean, I’m no expert but that's a pretty weird one, right?”

Elias shook his head. “That’s Jonah’s personal motto, apparently. The family one is fideli corde vincit, ‘the faithful heart conquers’. A little trite, perhaps, but far less... unusual.”

“So he made up his own motto instead?” Sarah snorted. “How edgy.”

Georgie sighed. “Please don’t piss off the ghost, Sarah.” 

She shrugged. ‘I’m going for a smoke. Let me know when you’re ready to get set up, okay?” When Georgie nodded, she headed back outside without another word.

Elias arched an eyebrow. “Is ‘angering the spirits’ a typical concern for your team?”

Melanie’s eyes narrowed. “Look, whether you believe the place is haunted or not, we’d all rather be safe than sorry.”

He raised his hands placatingly. “I didn't mean to imply that caution was a bad idea. I was wondering if you’d had, ah, negative encounters in the past.”

There was an awkward pause. Finally Danny said, “Look, we’re all here because we believe in the paranormal, mostly because we’ve seen… something that our current level of scientific understanding can’t explain. And in our experience, when you meet something real it’s very rarely pleasant, even if it isn’t actively malicious, okay?”

Elias nodded, then frowned. “Malicious?”

Several members of the team shifted uncomfortably. 

“Look, we’re not here to discuss our team’s personal history,” Georgie cut in firmly. “I can promise that we will treat your house, your family history, and any ghosts we find with respect and courtesy. Alright?”

Elias blinked once, then smiled at her warmly. “Thank you, Miss Barker. I would also advise you and your team to be careful. Jonah was a proud man, and not one to forget a slight.”

There was another awkward silence, with nobody entirely sure how to break the weird tension, then Martin turned to Jon and said a little too loudly, “So, uh, you speak Latin?”

Jon gave a slightly embarrassed chuckle. “Oh! Ah, well, I found having a reasonable fluency in a few languages was a lot of help in my studies. Annoyingly, older English writers tend to assume that all of their readers were classically educated and would understand their random asides in Greek and French.”

Elias smiled at him. “It’s one of the reasons that I invited you to come here. Jonah’s library includes a lot of the usual theology and spiritualism nonsense in Latin, but also a large collection of folktales - some are in very colloquial English, others from a correspondent in Germany. I was hoping you could give me a better idea of their academic importance, and perhaps some advice. I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I hate to think of all that knowledge just mouldering away because of superstition and some outdated notions of propriety.”

“Oh,” Jon said faintly. “Yes, of course. Uh- I’m sure that would be… uh.”

“He’d be delighted to help,” Melanie cut in drily. “In fact, you might have some trouble getting him to leave. But before you and Jon disappear into the library, how involved would you like to be in this?”

They both turned to look at her. “I beg your pardon?” Elias asked.

Melanie shrugged. “If you’re willing, it’d be great to get you on camera talking a bit about the house’s history. If you’re really keen, you could stick around for a bit during the night, see if any of your ancestors respond better to your presence.”

“On the other hand,” Georgie put in, nudging Jon’s shoulder gently as she came up to stand beside him, “if you want your name kept out of the whole thing, we can do that too. What would you like?”

“Ah.” Elias paused for a moment, thoughtfully. “Hm. I don’t think I’m quite up to creeping around in the dark trying to communicate with the dead, but I have no objection to going, ah, ‘on the record’ about my family history. What I am hoping this venture will do is get the house a little positive exposure, maybe see about opening it up to the public.”

He slanted a look at Jon. “If you do feel like you need more time with the collection, you’re welcome to stay tomorrow, or perhaps we could arrange another time?”

Jon cleared his throat. “That, that would be wonderful, Elias, thank you. I’ll, ah, see how it looks and let you know?”

Elias nodded, turning back to Melanie. “Is there anything particular you’d like me to talk about?”

She nodded, glancing around the foyer. “You put together that information Jon sent us, right? About the odd deaths, and the reports of people seeing things. If you could walk us through those areas, and explain what happened where, that gives us a good idea of which rooms we should give the most attention.”

“Very well.” He paused, thoughtful. “Is there any particular order you’d like to do them in?”

“Why don’t we start here,” Georgie suggested, looking over to Danny. “Maybe do the ground floor first, then work our way up?”

Danny nodded “That’s a lot easier to film. Don’t worry too much about the order you’re telling events in, we can edit later depending on what turns out to be important.”

Elias looked thoughtful. “Well, this is all very interesting. Alright, shall we start here?”

They all paused, then Danny said, “Oh! That was the movie thing, right? Okay, give us a sec…”

While Danny set up a stationary camera, Georgie abruptly remembered she was supposed to be doing things, and grabbed her folder of paperwork. 

“Hey, uhm, Elias?” she called, pulling out their standard waiver and release forms. “Before we get started, here’s the rest of our paperwork. You already sent us permission to access the house, but if we could get you to sign a couple more things? Basically to say that nobody’s suing anybody in the case of any accidents, and a release form for any pictures or recordings we make while on your property.” 

“Of course,” he agreed, glancing over the agreements, and signing neatly at the bottom. “I wouldn’t be too concerned, in any case. Anything valuable was removed years ago, so what’s left is either inexpensive or… particularly unsightly.”

Georgie grinned. “Wow, is this whole house just the attic full of ugly furniture that you can’t throw out because it was a gift?”

Elias chuckled. “That’s rather an accurate description, I’m afraid, right down to the lack of occupants. There’s a cleaning service that comes through every quarter and makes sure that nothing is leaking or falling apart, but other than that nobody but me has been here in years.”

“Well, we’re very glad that you decided to take an interest in the family history, anyway, and that you’re willing to let us film here.”

“Oh, no, you’re all doing me a favour, really,” he said, smiling at her warmly. “It was such a stroke of luck, Jon knowing all of you, and the timing lining up the way it did. The, ah, ‘paranormal investigation’ network seems to work on word of mouth, and convincing someone to come out here without an introduction would have been a much more difficult process.”

“Oh! Well, hey, it sounds like a stroke of luck on both sides, then.”

“Sorry,” Melanie cut in, “Can I just borrow Georgie for a second?”

“Of course,” Elias agreed, moving over to watch Danny chivvying the others around and setting up his camera.

Melanie caught Georgie’s shoulder and tugged her over to a chair so that they were eye level and Melanie could quickly powder her face a bit. 

“Hey,” Georgie said, smiling at the expression of intense concentration on Melanie’s face.

“Hmm?” Melanie asked, uncapping her mascara and tipping Georgie’s chin up.

“Have I told you lately that you’re incredibly competent and I find it very attractive?” 

Melanie’s cheeks went slightly pink. “Not, ah, not lately, but… thanks. Hold still so I don’t poke you in the eye and ruin your good opinion of me.”

Once they were set up, Georgie let Melanie take over. She clapped once sharply for a marker, and then started into her spiel, face serious and voice pitched just a little lower than usual.

“Hello folks, I’m Melanie King, and this is Georgie Barker, of Ghost Hunt UK. Today we’re at Magnus House in Norfolk, with Elias Bouchard, heir to the estate. This is a gorgeous old place, heritage listed and spacious. Yet it has stood empty for decades, not even the descendants of the original Magnus family willing to live here. How did that come to happen, Elias?”

“Well, I’m afraid the house has something of a dark history, dating back to the time of my five-times-great uncle, Jonah Magnus. He was a known eccentric, and died under mysterious circumstances. After Jonah’s death, his younger brother Eli, my namesake, inherited the estate, and it’s stayed in the family in direct line ever since. 

“None of my relatives have ever had any… odd experiences in the house, but both their servants and their guests reported a persistent sense of being watched, particularly when alone, unsettling dreams, and glimpses of a shadowy figure out of the corner of their eyes. There have also been a number of violent deaths in the house, over the years, and after a particularly horrific incident in 1918 my family moved out permanently. Since then, except for a few unsuccessful attempts to hire the house out, no-one has stayed here for any length of time.”

“Speaking of attempts to rent the place out, I believe you said the foyer had been the site of a nasty accident?”

Elias nodded solemnly. “In 1972, my father rented out the house to a director who was filming a historical drama. The project was plagued with equipment failures from the first day: lights would switch off, bulbs would blow, the film was full of odd shadows and distortions. They assumed it was faulty wiring, until one of the lead actors took a bad fall down the foyer stairs. When he regained consciousness in the hospital, he insisted that he had been pushed, even though multiple witnesses said that he had been alone on the landing at the time. At any rate, the actor refused to return to the set, the whole thing got into the papers, and the studio decided to cut their losses and film somewhere less troublesome. The relevant newspaper articles are available online these days if you care to look them up. 

“The next part I heard from my father, although I have found enough records to corroborate the bare facts:

“A year later, my father was approached by a different company which made rather... less-prestigious but very popular horror films. They had been intrigued by the headlines about an angry ghost throwing a film star down some stairs, and wanted to capitalise on the publicity by making a haunted house film in a supposedly-haunted house. 

“They had considerably less trouble with their equipment to begin with - the lights and cameras all seemed to be functioning perfectly. However, when they reviewed the footage later, they found that there was a shadowy figure visible in most of the film, standing in a corner of the room and apparently watching the actors. No amount of adjusting the lighting could fix it, and when the crew concluded that they had an actual ghost caught on film, they were delighted. 

“They decided they would try filming at night, and see if that made any difference to the spectre’s appearance, and they asked my father for permission. He was happy to grant it, but Richard Mendelson, the head of the Magnus foundation, insisted on accompanying the crew to supervise. My father was not present, but from what he managed to get out of the survivors later, something went drastically wrong with the lights they had set up. Four people were fatally electrocuted, including Richard Mendelson, and that was the last time anyone tried to use Magnus House as anything but storage.”

“Wow,” Georgie said softly. “That’s one hell of a night. I’m sure everyone will be glad to know that we’re using our own lighting sources, and not in any way relying on Magnus House for electricity.”

Elias smiled at her. “I can assure you, the wiring has all been checked very thoroughly by qualified electricians, but… I am glad to hear it.” 

He was very good, Georgie thought absently, his voice smooth and even and his expression showing sincere interest with just enough sorrow to not come across as sociopathic when talking about four deaths. 

After that, he walked them out of the hall to the kitchens, which were also on the first floor. The kitchen was massive, and included what he explained was originally the servants’ dining area. 

“This is the location of probably the worst of the incidents. In 1918, a woman named Harriett Owens was the head housekeeper here. She had three sons, all of whom had done what was expected of young men during the Great War, and joined the army. And, like so many others, they died on the Front. Mrs Owens was a widow, and the loss of all that she had left in the world drove her quite mad. She poisoned all the other servants, and then stabbed herself. She left no note, but the three letters of condolence from the armed forces were found on her bedside table.”

“My great-grandfather and his family were staying in London at the time, so the eight bodies were not found until a deliveryman came by several days later and found the door unlocked.”

He took them up a narrow staircase at the back of the kitchen, and onto the first floor. “Mind your step, although they have put in better handrails so nobody has fallen to their death in years.”

The hallways were narrow, and mostly empty of any decoration, and they filed along quietly. Elias led them to a door with faded yellow paint and opened it. “This is one of the guest rooms, though as you can see, the furniture has mostly been removed.”

The room would probably have been quite cozy, but empty of everything except a slightly-lopsided wardrobe, it just felt abandoned. 

“In 1841, Sampson Kempthorne and his wife Marianne spent several weeks as guests of Eli Magnus, staying in this guest room. Sampson began to complain of unsettling dreams, and had a number of arguments with his wife. One night, he strangled her to death in this room, and, when confronted by his host, insisted that she had been unfaithful. When Eli asked what proof he had, Sampson swore that he had seen the whole thing - in a dream. He was taken into custody, but hung himself before he could face trial.”

At the other end of the hall, he opened a blue door. This room still had an old-fashioned four-poster bed, though it had no mattress on it, but the floor was bare and the curtains on the window looked like they’d had a bad case of moths.

“In 1867, a friend of the family named Robert Smirke was staying here. He also suffered from nightmares, but his were of being watched, stared at incessantly by both strangers and loved ones, and sometimes of his reflection staring back at him with eyes that were not his own. He began to sleepwalk, and after one of the servants found him standing dazedly at the top of a staircase, his host began locking him in his room at night. Two days later, they found him dead in his bed. The official cause of death was apoplexy, but the general belief, based on the expression on his face, was that he had died of fright.”

He walked them across further down the hall, through a large sitting room, past the top of the big staircase down to the foyer, and on to an impressive-looking heavy wooden door. 

“This is the master suite.” The door opened with a faint groan. “And through here is the master bedroom, where Jonah slept, and where his body was found. He was an intensely private man, and very eccentric. He refused to let servants stay in the house overnight, insisting that they lodge elsewhere. The night of his death, he sent them all home early, the only reason given that he had work to do and didn’t want the distraction of people in the house. He locked the doors behind them, and that was the last time that he was seen alive. The staff had to break the door down in the morning, and his body was said to be horribly mutilated, ‘in a manner which precluded the possibility of self-injury’.”

Elias waited patiently while Danny took pictures of this room from a variety of angles, since it was still basically fully-furnished - the bed here was still made up, complete with hanging drapery and a dark grey bedspread, and it actually looked pretty nice.

After that, Elias led them up to the third floor. “This isn’t really part of the ghost tour, I’m afraid. Up here is mostly just storage and a few smaller guest bedrooms, but this one is the one we’re interested in.” He opened the door to a wide room with walls lined in bookshelves, heavy curtains covering the windows. He tugged the closest one open to let in the late afternoon light. 

“This was originally Jonah’s private study. His brother locked it up after his death, unwilling to destroy his books but also not wishing anyone to access them. There was also a library downstairs with a fairly impressive collection of ordinary books, but I’m afraid it was thoroughly pillaged when the family moved out, and there is nothing left but a few antique dictionaries.”

Jon immediately gravitated towards the closest bookshelf, reading the spines.

“It’s not all occult treatises on demon summoning,” Elias went on, gesturing to one of the shelves which contained rather haphazard-looking stacks of paper, “Jonah was very interested in folklore and hauntings, and collected first-hand accounts from all over the country, and even a few from farther afield - there are a number from the German correspondent I mentioned, Albrecht von Closen, who was kind enough to record all the local folktales and send them to Jonah.”

They paused in the study to get some good shots of all the books with their old-fashioned leather binding, embossed covers and titles in Latin. 

Georgie had to physically push Jon to get him to move out again. 

Elias laughed. “I assure you, they’ll still be here when we come back from getting your friends settled, Jon.”

Jon sighed longingly, then shook himself. “Yes, sorry. I... like books.”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to these. I’m sure they will appreciate the enthusiasm after the long years of disuse.”

Tim ran a hand consideringly along one of the shelves. “I have to say, everything is pretty clean.”

Elias nodded. “There’s a maintenance service that comes through once a quarter, to clean and make sure the place is in good repair. They work in pairs or larger groups, and they don’t stay in the house after sundown.”

Tim’s eyebrows rose. “They really take this seriously, huh? Even though nothing’s happened for, what, forty years?”

Elias shrugged. “I suppose they’ve decided to err on the side of caution. At any rate, nothing untoward has ever happened to the cleaners.”

“Well, that’s good to know, or honestly I’d start wondering if the health department should have just condemned the place.” Tim shook his head.

“I don’t believe they can, considering the heritage listing,” Elias pointed out. “And it is all up to code. The, ah, the general consensus seems to be that it isn’t the _house_ that’s at fault.”

“Well,” Melanie glanced around thoughtfully. “You said you were considering opening the place up. If this shoot goes well, you could probably try advertising it as haunted - there’s a pretty big market for that these days, if you don’t mind playing it up a bit.”

“It’s certainly an idea worth considering, if we all manage to survive the night,” Elias said, chuckling. “I could hardly in good conscience let people stay if it wasn’t safe.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here for,” Georgie offered, then paused, looking at Jon. “Oh, hang on. Are you going to be right to stay? We’ve got enough sleeping bags, but if you’re not comfortable… Sorry, I didn't even think-”

“Ah, I’m not-” Jon hesitated.

“I could give you a lift back to town if you’d like, I believe there is a bed and breakfast there.” Elias put in smoothly. “Alternatively, there are plenty of guest rooms made up if you would like to stay but not spend the night chasing ghosts, which is what I was planning to do.”

“Oh, well,” Georgie started, at the same time as Melanie said, “Are you sure?”

Elias raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not,” Melanie said hurriedly, “I mean, it’s your house. But- People don’t usually stay, and we aren’t exactly quiet?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s a big house, and frankly the quiet would be more likely to keep me awake.”

“You’re not worried about the ghosts?” Georgie asked.

Elias laughed. “Jonah has yet to trip one of his own family down the stairs, so I’m probably safer than all of you.”

He turned back to Jon. “You don’t have to decide now, of course.”

Jon shook his head. “I don’t have a problem with staying overnight.” He adjusted his glasses. “To, ah, to be honest? I wasn’t actually expecting to sleep? So I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

Elias looked briefly surprised. “I did say that you could stay longer, Jon. You don’t need to read the _entire_ collection tonight.”

Georgie laughed. “We did warn you you’d have trouble getting him out again.”

“Well, perhaps you could take a few books with you to tide you over?” Elias offered, and Jon’s eyes got very wide. 

“I- Are you sure? I’m, ah, I mean, I'm not going to say _no_ , but- Really?” 

“I expect they’d be at least as safe with you as they are here, and I did say that I wanted them available for researchers. Perhaps we can discuss it after we get your friends set up.”

“Yes, of course,” Jon agreed, sounding slightly dazed, and he followed them back downstairs without further protest.

  
  


****

**5:00pm**

“Do you know what Jonah was like?” Georgie asked Elias, while the others shuffled around the foyer, carrying the equipment in. “When he was alive, I mean. We have a lot of stuff from after his death, but what kind of person was he?”

“Ah, hm. Well, from what I’ve read of his letters, I would say that he was both intensely private and… driven, I suppose, would be the kindest way to put it. He put his whole life into his work, his research. He was not by any means a hermit, he had companions, but I have the distinct impression that he considered himself more intelligent than them. He was _not_ a nice man.”

“Alright, thanks,” Georgie murmured thoughtfully. “It helps when we’re trying to make contact, if we have better idea of the person’s character.”

“Well, I’m not sure if my speculation will be of any assistance, but I’m sure no ghost could refuse a polite invitation from you, Miss Barker.” 

Georgie blinked at the compliment, but… he seemed amused, rather than sleazy, and she’d been creeped on enough to know the difference, so she shrugged, gave a slightly awkward half-laugh. “If only it were that easy.”

“Well, I think that’s everything,” Melanie interrupted, voice sharp. “We’ll try not to make too much noise and disturb you in the study.”

“I doubt that’ll be an issue, the walls are fairly solid and it is a whole floor up. But if you’re going to get started, we should get out of your way. Jon?” 

“Oh, of course. Uh- You don’t need anything else?” Jon looked over at Danny.

“I think we’re fine.” Danny grinned up at him. “Thanks for putting off your book-time for us.”

Jon chuckled, and then went to join Elias, who escorted him out with one hand resting lightly on his shoulder.

Georgie turned to Melanie as they left. “Not going to punch him for getting handsy with _Jon_?”

Melanie folded her arms, and said irritably, “I might if Jon looked like he minded. And I’m still not apologising for last time.”

Georgie sighed. “Look, I don’t need you to ‘defend my honour’, Melanie. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself if I feel uncomfortable enough that I need to.”

“Even if putting up with that prick getting all in your space and offering to ‘show you the bedrooms’ meant we’d get to film there?” Melanie’s jaw had gone tight.

“I was fine.” Georgie repeated flatly. “He made a few gross comments, he didn’t touch me. I wasn’t going to blow him to get us filming rights, and if he expected me to, _I’d_ have punched him. If I need help, I’ll ask for it, so don’t go around hurting people and then tell me it’s my fault.”

Melanie opened her mouth, then shut it, flushing a dull red. “Oh. I don’t- I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. I-I punched him because it bothered _me_ , watching him make disgusting comments at you, okay? It’s not anything you did.”

Georgie nodded. “Okay. I accept your apology.” She smiled, and Melanie looked taken aback, as if she hadn’t expected that to be the end of it. 

Thinking back to a few of Melanie’s messier breakups… Georgie reached out and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Hey. I accepted the apology, you won’t do it again, we’re good, okay? You like Hungarian food, right?”

Melanie blinked down at their joined hands and then looked up at Georgie, searching her face. The tight unhappiness in her posture slowly eased out into bewilderment. “Uh, yeah?”

Georgie tugged her closer gently. “There’s a new restaurant down the block from me. After we get this show uploaded, would you like to have dinner?”

Melanie’s mouth curled up slowly at the corners, into the soft smile she rarely showed Georgie in public. “I’d love to.”

She leaned up, and Georgie kissed her softly, relaxing into it until Danny cleared his throat. “Right, well. I’m glad you got that sorted out, but the sooner we get started the closer you are to that dinner date, so… Quit blushing at each other and don’t say anything cute on camera, I’m enjoying the shipping wars in our comments section too much.”

They all cracked up at that, and started to grab the gear. Martin sighed a little wistfully, and Georgie raised an eyebrow at him. “Problem?”

He laughed. “No, no, not- that was very sweet. I’m, ah, maybe a little disappointed that Melanie isn’t going to punch Mr Bouchard?”

Georgie snorted. “If our charming host offers to show Jon his etchings, Jon will expect there to be etchings. Jon and I also agree on how entirely unattractive violent possessiveness is in a partner, so I don’t suggest punching the man yourself to impress him, okay?”

Martin twitched. “I wasn’t going to! I just- Oh, I don’t know. We’re not even friends, not really. Jon thinks I’m hopeless, and he’s so clever and- he’s never going to be interested in me.”

Georgie winced slightly. She and Jon had a regular habit of watching terrible sci-fi movies together over slightly too much wine, and she had recently spent some quality time bemoaning Martin’s messed-up education and lack of career prospects. 

Jon, who was a surprisingly earnest drunk, had expressed pretty serious admiration for Martin’s strength of character and kindness. 

He’d sounded as awkward as always when trying to say something nice, but two days later he’d emailed her a bunch of information on college night classes and local therapists and how to get government assistance for carers, with a quiet request that his name be kept out of it since Martin might not want Jon knowing so much about his personal life.

“Look, Martin,” Georgie began tentatively, “Jon is- Well, the aloof and snappish thing is mostly to cover the fact that he’s an awkward nerd and he’s bad at dealing with people.”

Martin blinked. “Uh. What? No he’s not.”

Georgie raised an eyebrow. “You just finished telling me how you barely know him. Consider the fact that you might have made some assumptions here.”

Martin blinked a few more times. “So… Jon doesn’t hate me?”

Georgie gaped at him. “What? No! If he actually hated you, you’d know, believe me! It just takes him a long time to warm up to people. ”

Martin still looked conflicted. “He gets along with Tim just fine.” 

“Tim schmoozes people for a living,” Tim put in cheerfully, coming around the corner with a box, “and should be considered an outlier when collating your data.” 

Martin went red. “Uh, sorry. I wasn’t-”

Tim shook his head. “Seriously. They give me all the first novels, because those authors run the gamut from egomaniacs who expect front-page advertising and are offended by the idea of letting an editor touch their masterpiece, to terrified introverts who don’t see why we need their opinion on cover art, let alone their presence on signing tours. Jon’s not _nearly_ that bad.”

“Oh.” Martin shifted awkwardly. “Uh… Sorry. If I’ve been, uhm…”

“A bit of a dick?” Tim laughed. “Look, if you actually want my advice? Jon’s got a pretty good knack for telling when people are lying to him. Probably why he and Georgie get along so well, she’s hopelessly straightforward.”

“I take that as a compliment,” Georgie warbled as she headed up the foyer staircase with an armful of cables.

“You would,” Tim called back, laughing. “Anyway,” he continued, turning back to Martin, “if you’re spending all your time trying to make him like you by being whatever you think he wants? It’s probably weirding him out. Relax! He’s just a guy. Talk to him like he’s a normal person.”

Melanie sighed. “Are we really encouraging this? Martin, your taste in men is terrible. Have you met Danny? He’s lovely, and single, and not a grumpy nerd who wears waistcoats unironically.”

Danny made a rude gesture at her without looking up from his computer. 

“...I like the waistcoats,” Martin admitted sheepishly.

Georgie started to laugh, the cheerful sound echoing around the cavernous foyer. Melanie threw up her hands in disgust. “I give up. I just don’t get it! Tim, tell me you don’t find Jon attractive.”

Tim shrugged. “He’s a little too high-maintenance for me, but he’s definitely attractive.”

“Danny? Danny, buddy, back me up here?”

Danny sighed theatrically, and finally lifted his head. “Honestly, Melanie, he looks fine. I wouldn’t date him, but that’s because I’m not into prickly stubborn nerds who are secretly kind. Unlike _some people_.” He threw a very pointed look up to where Georgie was leaning over the bannister and giggling. 

Melanie blinked at him a few times, then said airily, “I don’t like what you’re implying, Mr Stoker. I’m going to find Sarah, who will surely agree with me.”

They’d decided to work out of the first-floor sitting room, since it was a large, centrally located room and close to the bathroom Elias had pointed out to them, so nobody had to go wandering off alone. It also made it easy to run cables to both guest rooms, the master bedroom, and down the narrow staircase to the kitchen.

Sarah was always a lot calmer once they were working and she didn't have to talk to people. She and Danny sent the others scrambling with the equipment, getting the cameras set up in their designated hotspots. 

Danny connected all the camera feed to his computer, making sure they were all transmitting properly and the backup hard drive was working - Melanie had lost half a night’s footage once and had to go back to an abandoned factory and the second time she’d nearly gotten arrested. 

Sarah checked the audio levels, conferred with Danny, and then they both relaxed. 

Once everything was basically set up, Melanie glanced around, and then cleared her throat, took a breath, and called out, “Hey. Hey!”

After a moment, they all stopped what they were doing, and looked at her. She shifted restlessly in place, scrubbing her hands down her jeans. “Look, I know this is our fourth gig as a group, and Georgie and Sarah, I know you guys have both been around the paranormal scene for a while, but- I just- I want everyone to be careful, alright?” 

“Hey, we already signed the waiver saying none of us had a heart condition,” Tim said, and there were slightly nervous chuckles.

Melanie didn’t laugh, instead she set her jaw, and continued. “Look, there’s a reason everybody in the ghost-hunting community goes to the same places, alright, and it’s because those ones are… known. They’re _safe_. And… if you go other places, things could go… badly. I know you all believe in ghosts, but I need you to know that sometimes? Ghosts are… are a lot more _present_ than a few cold spots and some crackly EVP, and sometimes they want to _hurt_ you.” 

There was a long uncertain silence. Georgie swallowed hard, and she could see that Danny had hunched in a little, gripping his own elbows. Tim was very still, all the amusement gone from his face. 

Melanie looked around at them. “This place could be our big break, yes, but it’s also a complete unknown. Nobody else has checked it over, we’ve got no idea what to expect, and there are a _lot_ of odd deaths on that list. Maybe I’m being overcautious, maybe we’ll spend the whole night talking to shadows and get nothing. That’s a risk we’re all prepared to take. But either way, if anybody gets a bad feeling or notices something weird, you _tell somebody_ , even if you feel stupid or think it’s probably nothing. We’re doing the night watches in pairs, and if you hear strange noises, you wake somebody else up. You do _not_ go off alone to investigate, alright?”

Melanie made careful eye contact with all of them, then nodded. “Right, so. Uh, any questions?”

“Well,” said Danny, voice a little unsteady. “Uh, if the ghost thing doesn’t work out, do you think we could pitch a documentary on Jonah Magnus to Elias? We’ve got a lot of information, and he sounds like an interesting guy. I get the impression Jon could write a biography on him at this point, too.”

Melanie looked thoughtful. “That’s a pretty good idea, actually. Hey, Georgie, you think we could get-”

“How likely is this to be dangerous?” Tim’s voice cut through the conversation, sharp and cold.

Danny turned. “Tim, it’s not-” He broke off, and then abruptly darted forward, grabbing Tim’s shoulder roughly. “Hey, no- Tim, it’s not going to be dangerous. Melanie’s just being careful.”

“Oh, quit panicking,” Sarah snapped. “It’ll be fine, alright? We’re going to film some light orbs, and try to get a ghost to say something on tape, that’s all. Nobody is doing anything stupid like breaking into a goddamn _cursed hospital_ , and nobody is getting hurt.”

She scowled at Melanie, who stared back, pale and furious and unhappy.

Georgie shivered, and then shook herself, stepping forward to press her shoulder against Melanie’s. “Sarah’s right. We’re going to be careful, and we’re going to be professional, and we’re going to make a damn good show. Or, failing that, get a bunch of excellent footage of us making fools of ourselves as the spirits completely ignore us.”

Melanie was rigid with tension, but after a long moment she relaxed, breathing out and leaning against Georgie a little. “Okay. I’m serious about sticking together, though, alright? There’s been way too many accidents in this house, whether that was ghosts or just really shitty safety design, nobody goes anywhere alone.”

“What about Jon?” Martin asked, frowning. 

Georgie chuckled, looping her arm around Melanie’s shoulder. “The other bathroom was two doors down the hall from that study, and good luck to any ghost trying to pry Jon away from those books now he’s got them. But we can check on him every few hours during the night, make sure he’s okay.”

  
  


****

**6:00pm**

Georgie was always surprised by how dark it got outside of a big city. Once the sun was properly down, there wasn't even a streetlight to be seen from the front driveway. The grounds of the house were just a collection of shadowed trees and gently sloping lawns, the few outbuildings disappearing into the growing shadows.

They got some good external footage of the house with half-a-dozen of its narrow windows lit up, the ones they were using and the one up on the third floor that was the library, where Jon was presumably nose-deep in old books of folklore.

When they went up there, he was sitting at a desk piled with books, talking into the little tape recorder he’d always used to make notes when he was studying. Georgie had a weird moment of nostalgia seeing it, a vivid sense-memory of finding him hunched over laptop and textbooks and muttering into that ancient thing. 

She’d offered to get him one of the digital recorders she used for the show so he didn’t have to keep the boxes of cassettes, even pointed out that there were apps you could use on your phone, but he’d just shrugged and said that he was comfortable with it. 

She’d taken in the slightly defensive way he cradled the recorder, mentally labelled it with sentimental value, and then laughed and called him a hipster. He’d denied it, grumbling that just because something was new didn’t make it better, and they’d relaxed into the familiar argument. 

Jon, she thought with fond amusement, would probably be impressed by Martin’s record collection. “Hey, Jon.”

When he didn’t even twitch, Georgie sighed, and tapped him on the shoulder. He startled violently and looked up. “Wh- Georgie. Uh, sorry, what’s-” he glanced over at the rest of them in confusion, clearly still caught up in whatever he’d been reading. “Is- everything okay?”

“We’re fine, I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about history on the show. If not, can we borrow the library for a few minutes to film?”

“What happened to your sugar daddy?” Melanie asked, leaning up against the desk and looking over the pile of books.

Jon spluttered irritably for a moment, then snapped, “If you mean _Elias_ , he said he was going to set up in one of the guest rooms, get some work done on his laptop. He didn’t want to disturb you in case you were filming, but if you do need anything he’s in the room with the green door, a little further down the hall.”

“Not going to sleep in Jonah’s bedroom?” Danny smirked. “Too bad, we could have tested that theory about him not getting stroppy with family.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I think he was more worried about you lot waking him up to film than the ghost of one of his ancestors.”

“Huh.” Georgie grinned at him. “I’ve got to say, you could certainly do worse. He sounds like he’s really got his act together, and he definitely cleans up okay.”

“Don’t you start.” Jon groaned. “And- Wait, what?”

Danny eyed the nearest bookshelf, tracing his fingers lightly across the spines. “Georgie looked into him a bit, apparently your new best friend used to do drugs.”

“O-oh, well. That’s- that’s none of our business.” Jon scowled at them. “Why were you looking him up, anyway?”

Georgie shrugged. “Better safe than sorry. Anyway, it’s amazing what a shave and a decent haircut can do for a bloke - all the tabloid photos had him with a straggly beard and those really gross white-boy dreads, and he was pretty clearly off his face most of the time. I honestly didn’t recognise him when we got here.”

“Turns out all he needed was to get really obsessed with his messed-up family history,” Melanie agreed cheerfully, looking over some of the books.

Jon’s expression had gone tight and disapproving, so Georgie leaned in and ruffled his hair lightly. “Don’t mind us, we’re just teasing. It’s pretty unusual for you to take a liking to somebody this quickly, it’s just a bit of a surprise. Anyway, we’ll leave off when he’s around, okay?”

Jon sighed, and he pulled Georgie’s hand out of his hair but rather than shoving her away he laced their fingers together. “I know, it’s- Honestly, I may have gotten a bit carried away, but he does seem genuinely interested in the potential worth of the collection. And I can’t believe he's willing to let me borrow some of these, this collection is amazing.” He waved his free hand at the stack of yellowed paper on the desk. “These are files full of first-hand accounts of supposed hauntings and local folktales. A lot of them are variations on common ones, but some I've never even heard of before, and it’s- God, there’s so _much_! Just organising it is going to take months, and it’s really not a job for one person, but hopefully I can stay involved in the project. I know a few people who-”

“Alright,” Melanie cut in, but her tone was fond, “quit drooling over the books for a minute, you hopeless nerd. We need to get some footage in the library now that it’s dark. So you’ll have to move. Unless you want to go on camera talking about Jonah Magnus?”

Jon snorted. “Not in the least. Some of us have to maintain a little academic credibility.”

Melanie rolled her eyes. “Right, sorry. Nothing about Jonah is spooky, and there’s no proof that he’s ever pushed anybody down a flight of stairs.”

Jon put most of the books away, but Danny directed him to leave a few on the desk for ambience. Jon took himself off to get a cup of tea and something to eat, and they got some atmospheric shots of the bookshelves with the lights on and off, themselves wandering around the room looking spooked.

When Jon came back, he lingered in the doorway, watching over Danny’s shoulder until he’d turned off the camera. “Elias’s grandfather told him there was a hidden room somewhere in the house full of Jonah’s _really_ dangerous books on the occult. Unfortunately Elias couldn’t remember where it supposedly was, that would have been... quite something, wouldn’t it?”

Danny looked up, intrigued. “Actual secret passages? Or are we just talking a priest hole, or something?”

“More likely the latter. This isn’t the sort of area frequented by smugglers or the like, but the Magnus family were devout Catholics originally, and that sort of thing was quite common.”

“Yeah, I bet they would have been delighted to hear old Jonah was using their priest hole to hide his books on black magic.” Melanie muttered. 

“Hang on, wasn’t Jonah always sending his servants home at night anyway?” Georgie asked, struck by a thought. “Maybe the place was already haunted, and he was trying to find a way to get rid of the ghosts. Wouldn’t that be a trip?”

Melanie laughed. “Or he’s just pissed because now he's dead he can’t kick people out, and they keep doing things like trying to film trashy ghost movies in his haunted house? I mean, interesting angle, maybe we can work it in, but I’ll be honest, the guy sounds like a piece of work.”

  
  


****

**7:00pm**

They set watches for the night, and agreed they’d do a few EVP sessions, see how they went, and hopefully that would give them a better idea of what areas to focus on for a few more in the early morning.

After that, it was mostly a matter of not being too intrusive and scaring off the spirits. 

Sarah and Tim both grumbled about the lack of mobile coverage - the whole place seemed to be a dead spot, and none of them could get any signal unless they went outside. Eventually Sarah decided to have a short nap until the first EVP session at 10:30. 

Tim got Melanie to join him for a game of cards, and Georgie took over keeping an eye on the camera feeds so that Danny could join them. Martin settled against the wall with a notebook, writing slowly and occasionally scratching things out with a small frown.

It was nice, actually, Georgie thought, one eye on her friends and the other on the screens, where nothing was happening in a series of empty rooms.

  
  


**10:30pm**

The first EVP session passed without any noticeable responses, but that was fine - the reason for the recorders was that any sounds made in response to their questioning were often inaudible to the naked ear. They backed up the files, then Sarah settled in to run through them quickly, see if there was anything obvious that would show what they should focus on to get more interesting results the next time.

She’d only been working for a couple of minutes when Georgie heard her curse vehemently. “Problem?”

Sarah glared at her laptop, clicking around irritably. “Maybe, there’s some kind of static on Martin’s EVP tape. We checked for interference, but you were with him so I’m just- fuck, it’s on yours too.”

She started checking the other recordings, and her expression got tighter and more furious as the crackling buzz, whatever it was, turned out to be on every single one, underlying all the audio. 

After a good twenty minutes of her checking and trying to figure out where it was coming from, Georgie quietly asked if they could maybe try again, see if it was temporary.

Sarah made a growling noise, dragging her hands across her short hair, and then nodded.

They went back out, still in pairs, and tried recording in random places around the house, but every time the crackle was there.

“Can we edit it out?” Georgie asked, offering her a cup of tea. 

Sarah shook her head sharply, but she took the tea, slurped it angrily. “It’s not that consistent, and it’ll completely fuck up any chances of us getting any EVP readings on here if it try. Shit, this is such a pain, the checks we did at seven worked perfectly!”

“Oh, fuck,” Danny muttered, and they turned to look at him. “I’m getting something similar with the video, look.”

He played the video recording of them talking quietly to their recorders in the kitchen, and Georgie could see that the picture was breaking up just slightly, the whole thing covered with faint static, and the audio was similarly crackly.

Sarah hung over his shoulder, tea forgotten on the floor. “Oh, what the hell.”

“I mean, couldn’t we at least get the creepy shadow figure?” Danny muttered, adjusting settings. “Something we could use, you know? This just looks like crap.”

They both worked frantically, conferring, sending the others running to the other rooms to try moving the cameras slightly, but nothing seemed to stop the faint static. 

Sarah cursed quietly but fervently at the laptop, the recording devices, and the house in general.

“Hey,” Melanie said cautiously, “maybe we could-”

“I’ve tried it!” Sarah snapped, then she groaned, and got to her feet, pacing back and forth. 

“Hey, take a breath,” Tim tried, “technical difficulties happen, and apparently they’re common here. Blame Jonah Magnus.”

Instead of laughing Sarah scowled at him. “There’s no way this is a ghost, it’s too widespread, which means it’s a technical problem, and that’s _my_ fault. Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

She glared at Danny’s computer, where the video feed for the kitchen had listed sharply to one side. “Damnit, I mustn’t have screwed the tripod legs in hard enough when I moved it,” Danny said, getting up, but Sarah waved him off. 

“I’ll get it, and then I’m going for a goddamn smoke and then we’ll try rebooting the whole thing, alright?” She stalked out of the room towards the kitchen stairs, leaving Danny staring forlornly at his crooked camera feed.

“Stay close to the house,” Georgie called after her. “It’s pitch black out.”

“Yes mum,” Sarah called back, sarcasm thick enough to choke on.

“Soooo,” Danny said lightly. “Is she normally like this?”

Georgie shook her head. “She’s great at her job, I think she’s really frustrated. And honestly, she’s already tried everything I would have suggested. Maybe there’s some sort of magnetic interference in the house? It would explain why we can’t get a phone signal either.”

“Funny that it only started once it got dark, though,” Melanie muttered uneasily.

“Well, maybe it’s because we turned the kettle on? Elias did say the wiring was old and a bit shit.”

“I’ve never heard of a kettle causing this ki-” Melanie broke off as they heard a loud thud from the direction of the kitchen. They all stood frozen for a moment in confusion, then Georgie yelled, “Sarah? Sarah, are you alright?” There was no answer, but after a moment there was a sound of breaking glass. Georgie grabbed a torch and ran for the hallway, hearing a couple of others following her.

  
  


**11:30pm**

She had to slow down when she got to the kitchen stairs, and then- At the bottom of the stairs, a stranger in a black hoodie was crouched over Sarah, who was sprawled on the floor. Her head- Georgie swallowed hard. Sarah’s head was at a weird angle, and she wasn’t moving. The stranger looked up, eyes wide in her dark face. “What happened?”

“”I think that’s our question,” Melanie said sharply from behind Georgie’s shoulder. “Right after ‘Who the fuck are you?’”

Georgie recovered herself and stepped carefully to the bottom of the stairs, avoiding… Sarah, and trying not to touch anything.

The kitchen door was standing open, one of the panes of glass in it splintered. There were two other people in the room, a grey-haired older woman in the kind of outfit Georgie’s mum would have described as ‘sensible’, and a tall, broad-shouldered man in black who looked very familiar.

“Look, I’ve got my first aid certificate,” Georgie heard Martin saying, still halfway up the stairs behind Danny, “nobody move her and I’ll see if I can-”

“Stay there, Martin,” Danny said gently. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do for a broken neck.”

Martin made a soft, awful noise, and fell silent.

“Is this why you told us not to come to the house,” Melanie snapped at the man from the petrol station, “because you didn’t want the complications when you were breaking in?”

He shrugged. “Kind of? Mostly I didn’t want this to happen.” He gestured at Sarah’s body, as the other woman straightened up. 

“I’m sorry about your friend,” she said to Georgie earnestly. “We heard the crash and the shouting.”

Georgie said quietly, “She was going out for a smoke. She must have slipped.”

“In this house?” The old woman gave a harsh bark of laughter. “This wasn’t an accident, believe me.”

They all looked at her. “Right, and you are?” Tim demanded.

The woman scowled at them. “You are all in very serious danger, and you need to leave immediately.”

“Sure, because otherwise Jonah Magnus is going to kill us,” Tim snapped, voice gone sharp and sarcastic. “And you want us to leave you alone in the house so that you can ‘take care of the ghost’. And if all of the incredibly valuable antiques also go missing, that’s a complete coincidence.”

“We do _not_ have time for this.” The younger woman in the hoodie cut in, “Look, we aren’t burglars.”

“You broke in.” Melanie pointed out.

“I heard yelling,” the man said, “and the keys were taking too long.” 

“What?” Georgie asked. 

The older woman took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “My name is Gertrude Robinson. Here, my card.” She handed Georgie a business card. It said, simply, G. Robinson, Consultant. Underneath was a mobile number and an email address. 

“These are Gerard Keay and Sasha James, my assistants. I’m here because James Wright, who manages this building on behalf of the Magnus Foundation, sent one of his employees to the house two months ago, and he hasn’t come back. If you want to call the police, you’re welcome to do so, but you need to do it from outside. _Now_.”

“Well, I’m all for calling the police,” Tim said firmly, just as Danny said, “Why don’t we just ask Elias? If they’re telling the truth, surely he’d know about it?”

“Wait, there are more of you?” Gerard sounded suddenly anxious. 

He glanced at Gertrude, but she was frowning at Danny. “Elias Bouchard?”

“Yeah.” Danny raised an eyebrow challengingly. “You know, the guy who owns the house, and let us in here?”

Gertrude shot Sasha a look, and Sasha shook her head. “No chance. As of three days ago, he was on a private yacht somewhere in the Maldives.”

Gertrde opened the satchel she was carrying, rifled through a sheaf of papers and pulled out a photograph. It was Elias, looking nervously at the camera in a nice suit. “Have you seen this man in the house?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Georgie confirmed. “Elias.”

“Hang on.” Melanie pressed up against her side so she could see too. “This guy’s got brown eyes. Elias’s are grey. Remember? Jon said they were the same colour as… Fuck.”

She shuddered, leaning into Georgie. “Please tell me this guy’s got a brother or something.”

“I’m afraid not.” Gertrude’s voice had gone tight. “This is Tom Jackson, the Magnus Foundation employee who went missing. You’ve spoken to him?”

“Yeah,” Georgie said slowly, unhappily. “He let us in, gave us a tour of the house. He had keys, too. He’s also been emailing our friend for weeks, that’s why we’re here. Except he said his name was Elias Bouchard.”

Gertrude’s eyes widened. “That’s- unexpected. And worrying. Most spirits aren’t capable of that level of planning.”

“We’re… Really going with the theory that Jonah Magnus, what, possessed this guy so he could lure us here to kill us?” Martin sounded equal parts alarmed and sceptical.

“Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of Jonah’s death,” Gertrude said tightly. “It is _not_ a coincidence that he’s brought you here now.” 

Georgie felt Melanie brace herself, and then she addressed her team. “Look, whether we’re buying this or not, our friend is dead. We’re done here. Me and Georgie will go find Jon, you guys call the cops, tell them exactly what’s happened, and don’t let this lot touch anything. Alright?”

Gertrude made an irritated sound. “If you must go back into the house, Sasha will go with you.”

“Fine.” Melanie eyed Sasha sharply. “No wandering off.”

Sasha snorted. “Kind of defeats the purpose if I do.”

  
  


**11:45pm**

Melanie opened the library door, calling out, “Oi, Jon. We need to go, now.”

Silence greeted them, apart from a soft hissing: Jon’s tape recorder was sitting on the desk, whirring gently. 

“Jon? Jon!” Melanie cursed under her breath, then did a rapid survey of the room. “He’d better be in the bathroom or something.”

Georgie picked up the recorder and hit rewind until she heard talking. 

Jon’s familiar cadence burst out, “-statement from the farrier in 1803 clearly shows a classic Black Shuck tale, similar to the one recorded by the bishop of- Oh! Elias, sorry, I- I didn’t hear you come in. Is everything alright?”

The tape went a little staticky as the other man, who was apparently not Elias Bouchard, replied, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice was low and a little rough. “It’s the strangest thing, I was having trouble sleeping, and then I remembered- I told you earlier, that my grandfather mentioned a secret room? I’d forgotten- I must have been fairly young. But I just as I was dozing off I had the clearest image of him showing me, and I just wanted to check-”

He stopped talking and there was a strange grinding noise. 

“Good lord,” Jon said, audibly shocked. “That is- that is _not_ a priest hole.”

There was an odd echoing quality to not-Elias’s voice when he replied, “I don’t suppose you have a torch? It’s quite dark in here.”

There were some scrabbling sounds, then Jon saying breathlessly, “Yes, I- here,” and hurried footsteps, then a pause. 

“We should probably fetch the others,” Jon said slowly, sounding almost dazed.

“Just a quick look,” Elias said lightly, coaxing, as the static on the tape increased. “Shall we see if Jonah’s library is up there?”

“I- Well, I suppose there’s no- Alright. Just a quick look.”

There was the sound of footsteps, echoing again, growing fainter, as the static buzz faded. A minute or so later, that slow grinding noise came again, and then nothing. 

Georgie pressed fast-forward again, but there was only the hiss of empty tape until the garbled sound of their voices abruptly burst in, startling them all. 

Georgie switched off the tape.

“Well, shit,” Sasha said feelingly. “I- Look. Can you both promise me that you’ll stay in this room until I get back? Stay together, and if you hear any noises or find a goddamn _secret passage_ , yell for the rest of us and don’t go anywhere. Alright? This is really bad, and it is _not_ a coincidence that this happened straight after your other friend died. Please.”

They eyed her earnest face and tense shoulders, exchanged a look, and then Georgie nodded. “This whole gig has been weird since the beginning, and I should have seen it. Can you bring the rest of our group up with you when you get your friends?”

Sasha nodded sharply. “Best if we all stick together from here on out. I’ll be quick.” She darted out the door, and they heard her trotting carefully down the stairs.

Georgie stared numbly at the tape recorder for a moment, then tucked it into her pocket. “There wasn’t much blank tape before we came in, maybe ten minutes at most, so they can’t have gotten far. Jon said we were too far from the coast for smugglers tunnels or anything, so they’ve got to still be in the building somewhere, right?.”

“Also we’re on the third floor, and Mr Lord of the Manor said ‘up there’ on the tape,” Melanie added, then moved away abruptly and began looking around the room. “This isn’t your fault,” she muttered, sweeping her torch across the bookshelves. “We should all have figured there was something off when this guy wanted to meet us out here alone, and was happy to give us the run of his bloody heritage-listed manor house.” 

“Yeah, but I’m the one who gave it the okay after a, a _cursory google_. God, those emails, though. I mean, he really just sounded like he wanted somebody else to care about his big old spooky house, you know? I mean, he hit _all_ the right notes to sucker Jon in, and us too.”

Melanie snickered. “It’s going to be incredibly awkward if we find this wretched secret passage and he’s just up there trying to seduce Jon with a bunch of moldy old books on demon worship.”

Georgie gave a startled laugh, and then sobered abruptly. “I think it’ll ruin the mood when we tell them that Sarah’s dead.”

They moved about the room in silence for a few minutes after that, prodding at carvings, tilting books, trying anything that looked like a lever or switch, while checking the floor for any sign of disturbances.

“It’s not as though we had any particular reason to be suspicious.” Melanie muttered under her breath. “Ghosts don’t usually lure people in by _email_.”

“Yeah…” Georgie groaned. “Argh, this is so fucking stupid.” She kicked one of the bookshelves angrily. “This place is clean but not _that_ clean, there’s got to be some sign of where they went!”

The door opened abruptly, making Melanie jump. Sasha said, “Oh, good. You’re still here.”

“Uh, we said we weren’t going to do anything stupid,” Melanie snapped, but Georgie interrupted her, calling out, “Danny! Hey, have you still got those plans for the house? Jon and Elias- or Tom, or Jonah, whatever- have disappeared into some kind of secret passage, we need to check them.”

“I have a set of plans already marked,” Gertrude said firmly, “and your friend has kindly removed the need to figure out which room the entrance is in. It makes sense, I suppose - this is where Jonah’s body was originally found. Here, take this,” She held out one end of a measuring tape, and after a moment Georgie took it. “Over to that corner please. We need a point two metres from the south wall.”

Georgie did as she was told, holding the tape in place so that Gertrude could mark the floor in front of one of the bookcases, but Melanie said sharply, “Hang on, Jonah’s body was discovered _here_? I thought it was in the master bedroom?”

“And who told you that?” Gertrude shot back. 

Melanie opened her mouth, then shut it again slowly, jaw going tight. 

“Behind here,” Gertrude said to her assistants, pointing to a shelf in the corner of the room.

“Okay, so how do we open-” Tim stuttered to a stop as Sasha grabbed one side of the bookcase and Gerard the other, and they simply hauled it forward until it crashed to the floor, scattering books everywhere. 

“What the fuck,” Danny said blankly. 

Gerard produced a sledgehammer.

“You- you can’t just- this place is heritage-listed!”

Gertrude nodded at Gerard, who gently pushed Danny out of the way, then took a massive swing straight into the wall. Bits of plaster and wood flew everywhere, and there was a crunching sort of noise. When he pulled the sledgehammer back, they could see a dark crack in the wall. He shifted his shoulders, then hit it again.

“I don’t know exactly what Jonah wants your friend for,” Gertrude said sharply, around the crashing blows, “but I suspect it will make him too powerful for us to destroy by the usual means, so we aren’t going to wait about trying to find a bloody hidden switch.”

Gerard kicked at the mess he’d made of the wall, caving it in until there was a hole big enough for a person. “Right. We bringing them?” He jerked his head towards Georgie and the others.

Sasha frowned at them. “You guys should wait here. Actually, you should go wait outside. It’ll be safer. If your friend is still alive, we’ll do our best to save him.”

“His name is _Jon_ ,” Martin said tightly.

“And we’re coming too,” Georgie put in. She glanced at Tim and Danny. “Look, you don’t have to-”

“Jon’s my friend too,” Danny said firmly. “And you guys are my team. Uh-”

Tim snorted. “As if I’m letting you go in there without me.”

Gertrude sighed. “Very well, but I make no guarantees for your safety.”

“Fine but if you’re coming then keep up!” Sasha called, and they all scrambled to grab their torches and follow her into the wrecked wall.

Inside was a narrow passageway, forcing them to go in single file, Melanie slipping in first and Danny bringing up the rear, all of them with their torches and Danny carrying his little handheld camera.

“Really?” Martin asked, looking at the camera.

“It makes me feel less helpless,” Danny muttered. “Melanie has a knife.”

“Melanie is allowing for the possibility that there’s at least one physical human involved in this,” Melanie shot back. “Notice tall dark and grouchy up there’s still got his sledgehammer.”

“While I approve of being prepared for all eventualities, I would appreciate it if you focussed on getting your friend out, and left confronting ghosts to the experts.” Gertrude said shortly. 

  
  


****

**Midnight**

The staircase was narrow, cramped, and steep. Gerard and Martin were both stooped awkwardly, and Georgie was already feeling her thighs burn.

Gertrude, walking behind her two assistants, seemed to be having no troubles, and actually started to talk. “I first came to this house in 1973, when Miles Bouchard was letting the second group of hapless fools try to film here.”

“Uh, shouldn’t we be quiet?” Melanie interrupted hurriedly. 

“I don’t know if it’s possible to sneak up on Jonah in his own house,” Gertrude said coolly, “and either way I think knocking down the wall has rather tipped our hand. Our best bet here is to hope that we’re in time to interrupt whatever it is he’s trying to do. As I was saying, in 1973 I was called in by Richard Mendelson, then head of the Magnus Foundation, who had finally realised that there was more than faulty wiring at work and wanted to stop anyone else dying.”

“We got the film crew out safely, but I wanted to destroy Jonah Magnus, so my team and I went back in, and Mendelson followed us. I wasn’t prepared - I was young and arrogant, and Jonah Magnus was unlike anything I’d ever encountered before. Most ghosts fade with age, but I believe he has been feeding on the deaths of others somehow, making himself stronger, and he isn’t tied to his mortal remains, either, or at least not what’s buried in his grave.”

She shook her head, slowly. “I lost my entire team, and Mendelson, who Jonah had managed to possess, had a fatal heart attack. I am honestly not sure if that was Jonah or simply the stress of the night - he was in his late sixties, and not in the best of health. The Bouchards kept it out of the papers, of course, and my team’s deaths were reported as accidental. Mendelson they put down as ‘natural causes’.” She gave a disgusted snort. “I explained all of this to Miles, and if I’d had my way we would have burned the place to the ground, but he wasn’t willing to go that far.”

“Since when do you let that stop you?” Gerard asked, sounding amused.

Gertrude chuckled. “As I said, I was a lot younger then. At any rate, Miles agreed to keep the place empty - no guests, no open house tours, no tantalising rumours of hauntings, and no way for Jonah to find more victims. He was _supposed_ to explain all this to Wright when he took over the job as head of the Foundation, but,” she made an irritated sound, her voice turning sharper, “apparently he didn’t do a good enough job, since Wright thought it was fine to send some hapless assistant out here alone to go through Jonah’s books. Which gave Jonah a new victim, and, apparently, access to the internet, which I admit I did not realise would be an issue.”

“Okay, so you’ve never heard of a ghost using a computer either?” Georgie asked, interested despite herself.

“No,” Gertrude said flatly. “Ghosts don’t usually interact with their surroundings, and they certainly don’t _email_. I told you Jonah was unusual. I suppose we should have expected it, given how much he enjoyed interfering with the film equipment. I- Ah.”

There was an open archway at the top of the stairs, and once Gertrude stopped talking they could hear a voice speaking, low and rhythmic. “Gerard?”

“There’s somebody there, reading.” Gerard murmured back, sidling up to the arch with his back against the wall. “A man. Not Jackson, must be the missing friend? I can’t see anybody else.”

“Carefully.”

Gerard nodded, and then moved forward. Sasha followed him, the two of them keeping their backs to each other, and Gertrude edged in more slowly, looking around.

Melanie took one look inside and then darted past Gertrude with a cry of, “Jon!” and Georgie rushed after her as quickly as she could. 

The room was wide, with a low ceiling and bookcases along two of the walls. The centre of the floor was painted or possibly carved with a series of concentric circles with some kind of symbols between them. Georgie took all of that in with a single glance before she saw what had drawn Melanie’s attention: Jon, standing at a wooden lectern, reading from a book. 

It was his voice she could hear, steady and sure as the Latin syllables spilled off his tongue. He didn’t stop or look up as Melanie reached him and grabbed his shoulders, Georgie catching up to her and calling his name. 

She heard a bitten-off cry behind her, and turned, then froze. There was a narrow alcove hidden by one of the bookcases, and not-Elias, probably-Jonah, had stepped out of it and stabbed Gertrude. She was staggering back, bleeding; Tim, just coming through the doorway, managed to catch her before she fell.

“Hello again, Ms Robinson,” definitely-Jonah purred. “So lovely of you to visit me again, and bring me even more of your charming little sacrifices.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Gerard snapped, and lunged at him. Jonah turned that awful smile in his direction and his eyes were _wrong_ , too-bright, and Gerard faltered to a stop, the sledgehammer falling from his fingers as he made a choking sound.

Sasha pulled something out of her pocket, a bundle of paper and something shiny wrapped in bright red thread, and when she darted forward Jonah dodged back, laughing softly.

Martin scrambled in and knelt by Gertrude, pulling off his jacket and pressing it to her bleeding side. 

Sasha and Gerard were circling Jonah, trying to corner him but keeping out of range of the knife. Tim was getting up with a determined look on his face when Jonah turned and locked eyes with Danny, still in the doorway. Danny gave a startled gasp, and then swayed backwards- losing his footing on the top of the stairs. 

Tim screamed, grabbing Danny’s jacket and trying to pull him back, but instead he fell too and they both tumbled out of sight.

The momentary pause allowed Gerard to hit Jonah, the punch knocking him back against the wall, but he seemed unconcerned and twisted away from Sasha before she could hit him with whatever she was holding.

Melanie, tense as a wire, started to move forward, but Georgie grabbed her arm and jerked her head in Jon’s direction. Despite everything that had happened in the last several minutes, Jon hadn’t moved or stopped reading. His eyes were fixed on the book, his hands clenched around the edges of the lectern so tightly there was blood seeping slowly between his knuckles.

Georgie edged around behind him, slowly, slowly, and felt Melanie shifting to his other side. 

“One,” Melanie breathed, “two-” and then Georgie made the mistake of glancing up. 

Jonah was staring right at her. His eyes weren’t grey at all, she realised: they were silver, reflective, like a mirror, and she fell into them. 

  


_**The world faded away.** _

  


_She was standing in the empty dark of an abandoned building, watching a dead woman walk towards her. Distantly she was aware that Alex, her dearest friend, was lying still and grey on the floor. There was a flickering streetlight outside the building: she could see it through the window, through the dead woman’s torso. All the colour was leaching out of the world, and nothing mattered…_

  


But Georgie had been here before. 

She had heard the spectre’s words, and she had lost Alex. She had lost herself, too, for months. But she had survived. She had faced the grim inevitability of her own death, and she had not turned away, not like this coward before her who had fled from it, trapped himself in this house, and killed dozens of people in his desperate scrabbling attempts to save himself from that end. 

  


_The woman leaned in to whisper in Georgie’s ear.... and instead of cowering and covering her ears, Georgie raised her head and looked her right in the face, calm and unafraid. They spoke the words together, **"The moment that you die will feel exactly the same as this one."**_

  


She felt something recoil from her, the reflection splintering, and with a dizzying rush she was back in the attic of Magnus House, Jonah Magnus staring at her with his face twisted with something that might have been rage or fear. Melanie hissed “three!” and Georgie wrapped her arms around Jon, clamping a hand over his eyes and yanking him backwards, sending them tumbling to the floor. Melanie slammed the book shut and shoved her knife through it, pinning it to the lectern, which tipped over with a crash.

Jon was squirming in her arms, twisting and stretching his arms- towards the book, she realised, even though he couldn’t see it, like it was pulling him somehow. She gritted her teeth and held on, dragging him further away from it. He was too thin, like always, and it was distressingly easy to just haul him into her lap and hold him still, and she had time to look up and see what was going on. 

Gerard had taken advantage of Jonah’s momentary distraction to get him into a headlock, the arm with the knife pinned to his side, while Sasha slapped her handful of weird shit directly onto his face and started to chant something. Jonah thrashed like a fish on a hook, face contorted with fury, voice rising in a breathless scream- then abruptly went limp. 

Gerard lowered him to the floor, kicking the knife away when it dropped, and then yelped, “Oh, fuck! What happened to his eyes?”

“Jesus!” Sasha winced, tipping the man’s face up. He made a faint moaning sound. “Agnes said these were the strongest she had, but they don’t normally do… that. Look, he’s alive, we’ll work it out later.” 

Melanie called out, “Hey, are we good?”

“No!” Gertrude rasped sharply. “Jonah doesn’t need a body to be dangerous. There’s something of his up here, something he used to bind himself to this plane.”

Jon shuddered convulsively in her grip, and then whispered, “Georgie?” 

Georgie felt her shoulders sag with relief, and let him go. “Hey, Jon. You back with us?”

He nodded, shifting awkwardly out of her lap and tugging at his shirt cuffs, looking around.

There was a soft scraping sound from the stairwell, and then a dark hand appeared in the doorway. Tim crawled awkwardly into the room, tugging Danny along.

“Oh, thank god,” Melanie breathed, darting forward and helping them both into the room, propping Danny into a sitting position against the wall. “Are- are you guys okay?”

Tim groaned, slumping next to his brother. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, and Danny might be concussed, but we’re alive. Uh, you got him?”

Sasha was inspecting the bookshelves warily. “We got him out of poor Tom here, but it’s not over yet. Sit tight, and if you start to feel weird, yell.”

Gerard started on the other wall, carelessly dropping things to the floor from time to time. 

“Define ‘weird’,” Danny slurred. “Uh. Can ghosts, um, make you hallucinate shit? Because I was- I saw-” he broke off, swallowing hard, and Tim leaned closer, gripping his shoulder. “Hey. You’re okay, I’ve got you.”

Danny gave a weird shaky laugh, dropping his head gently onto Tim’s shoulder. “You came after me that time, too.”

Tim froze, then abruptly swept Danny into a hug. “Of course I did,” he muttered into Danny’s hair. “I always will. What would I do if something happened to you, huh?”

Georgie could feel her eyes getting a little warm, and was seriously considering hugging everybody in the room when a faint scratching sound caught her attention. She turned, and felt her skin go cold with horror when she saw that Jon was struggling to pull Melanie’s knife out of the damned book.

She swore under her breath and grabbed his ankle, yanking him away, but he hung onto the book with surprising strength so she ended up dragging the lectern closer as well. They ended up struggling in a heap on the floor as she tried to drag his hands away and he clung desperately. She yelped when she crushed one of his hands against the knife and sliced a deep gash in it, but Jon didn’t seem to notice or care, his wide eyes never leaving the blasted book. 

She’d almost forgotten that there were other people in the room when somebody yanked the book away, knife and all. Jon tried to scramble after it, but Georgie tackled him, pinning him down again. 

Gerard, who was holding the book, said thoughtfully, “We reckon this is it?”

Gertrude was saying, “Possibly, but either way-” as Gerard pulled a bottle of lighter fluid from his coat pocket, squirted it over the book, and then followed it up with a lighter. 

Sasha grabbed what looked like a silver tea tray, and tossed it onto the floor next to Gerard’s boots.

The book caught with a satisfying little ‘Whoomph,” and he dropped it on the tray. 

They all watched with interest as it went up in flames, burning an eerie bluish-green, and then waited. And waited. 

Jon stopped struggling. Georgie looked down cautiously, but didn’t let go this time. He was staring at the burned book still, but he plucked at her sleeve very lightly, and whispered, “Eyes.”

The room was very still. Sasha was looking around. “Gertrude? Do you think that’s it?”

Uncertainly, Georgie covered Jon’s eyes again. He twitched slightly, and then repeated a little louder, “Eyes!” His voice sounded ragged, wrecked, as though he’d been screaming for hours instead of reading for a few minutes.

Georgie glanced up to find that Gerard was staring down at them, intent as a hunting cat. “Uh, Jon says eyes?”

“Not done then,” Sasha said with a sigh, starting to canvas the room again. “Anything more useful than ‘eyes’?”

“We don’t exactly have an autopsy report, but Jonah’s body was described as ‘mutilated’,” Gertrude said thoughtfully, starting to sit up. Martin very gently pushed her flat again. 

Gertrude glared at him. “Excuse me, young man.”

Martin hunched his shoulders but didn’t move. “I’m pretty sure if you bleed out, you’ll make Jonah stronger, so, um, stay still please?”

Gertrude sighed, settling back down. “I suppose you have a point.”

“Great,” Melanie started helping to search the room. “So… you reckon Jonah put his own eyes in a jar or something? Is that even physically possible?”

“You’d be surprised,” Gerard muttered, emptying a box of papers onto a table and sifting through them.

Gertrude, now obediently lying on the floor, said, “Oh!” and pointed at the centre of the design on the floor. 

Sasha immediately came over and crouched down beside her. “Huh. I think there’s an outline there - some kind of trapdoor or secret compartment.”

Gerard abandoned the papers to collect his sledgehammer, and slammed it straight into the centre of the floor. The wooden boards splintered, and then Gerard staggered, making a choking noise. 

“Shit!” Sasha pulled a bottle of clear liquid out of Gertrude’s bag, and hurriedly tipped it over Gerard’s head. “Hey, Gerry, you alright?”

He nodded roughly, though there was blood running from one nostril, and they both started to pull up the pieces of broken wood. The air in the room had a heaviness to it, like the humidity before a thunderstorm, and Georgie found herself looking around tensely, checking that the limp form of Tom Jackson hadn’t moved. Jon’s bloody fingers were wrapped around her arm, but he was clutching her closer rather than trying to get away.

Melanie darted over to help rip at the flooring, and they quickly found the edges of a hinged panel, now split in half, and pulled it up and out of the way. “So… We figure Jonah’s eyes are in that box?”

“Check,” Gertrude said firmly. “He’s exactly that kind of bastard.”

Sasha pulled out the box. It was small, made of plain dark wood, and not even locked. She opened it cautiously, and then grimaced, putting it down hurriedly on the silver tray with the still-smouldering book.. “Fuck. Yeah, those are some two-hundred-year-old eyes, alright.”

Gerry shrugged, dousing the box in lighter fluid. As soon as he flicked open his lighter, though, Melanie knocked it out of his hand, then snatched the box up, clutching it to her chest and backing away from them.

Georgie jerked upright. “Melanie? What are you doing?”

Melanie stared around the room, her eyes wide and oddly glassy. “I- I don’t- know? I just- You shouldn’t burn it, it’s-” 

“Really, Jonah?” Gertrude sighed, as Gerard picked his lighter back up. “Do you actually think you can win this?”

“The fucker killed Sarah, Melanie,” Danny slurred, sitting up. “Come on, you can fight him!”

Melanie’s jaw tightened. She took a step towards Gerard, and gradually held the box out at arms length.

“Don’t let him win,” Jon rasped, gone tense as a wire in Georgie’s arms, “please, Melanie.”

Gerard grabbed the box, pulling at, but Melanie’s fingers were still locked around it, her knuckles white with strain.

“He’s just a spineless coward who’s afraid to die,” Georgie said quietly. “You’re stronger than him, love.”

Melanie’s arms shook, then she set her teeth and gritted out, “Burn it.”

“Uh,” Sasha said blankly, then started scrabbling in her bag. Gerard let go, flicked the lighter open and lit the box. 

The flames leapt hungrily at the dry wood, and Melanie screamed between her teeth for several agonising seconds, and then abruptly her fingers loosened and she dropped the box, staggering backwards. Sasha grabbed her and dumped a bottle of water over her hands, cursing, while Gerard watched the box intently. 

The pressure in the air seemed to increase exponentially, until Georgie felt like her head was being squeezed in a vice, and it got worse and worse until- all at once, it was gone. The box continued to burn smokily on the floor. Gerard grabbed another book and used it to scoop what was left onto the tray of ashes. 

Jon pushed at Georgie’s arm gently, and she gave him a quick hug, pulling him up so that they could go check on the others. Melanie’s hands looked awful, red and starting to blister, and everybody else was in bad shape too. 

Georgie had a sudden thought, and pulled out her phone. “Oh, blessed signal. Nobody die, alright? I’m calling us an ambulance.”

  
  


**March 4th 2018  
1:00am**

They managed to collectively stagger down the narrow stairs without anyone falling. 

Gerard just picked Gertrude up and carried her, Martin hovering nervously behind them the whole way. Tim and Danny were leaning on each other, still unwilling to let go. 

Georgie wrapped an arm around Melanie’s shoulders, heartsick at the fine tremors running through her as she held her hands very still and walked carefully. Jon was walking ahead of them. He’d shaken his head at Sasha’s offer of a supporting arm, and besides the cut-up mess of his hands, he didn't seem to be too badly off, although he hadn’t said a word. 

Sasha had wincingly gotten Tom Jackson onto his feet - he seemed to be almost catatonic, his eyes seared white, but he let her lead him downstairs and out into the drive with the others.

The old blue van they’d seen earlier was parked in front of the house, and contained, among other things, a disturbingly well-stocked first-aid kit, and a foam camping mattress, which Sasha unrolled on the ground so that Gerry could set Gertrude down on it.

Martin joined them, and he and Sasha had a hurried conference over Gertrude, who was by this point an unhealthy shade of grey. After a minute, Gertrude slurred irritably, “He missed my lung. I promise not to bleed out on you before the ambulance gets here. Stop fussing. You can get me a blanket if it’ll make you feel better.” 

After exchanging a glance with Gerard, who was patiently maintaining pressure on her side, Sasha meekly tucked a blanket around her and left her alone. 

Tim tugged Danny over and they sat down on the edge of the mattress in an ungainly heap of limbs. Melanie, still tucked into Georgie’s side, had gone worryingly pale and clammy, and Georgie said, “Hey, Martin, I think we could use a blanket too. Maybe a bottle of water or something?”

Martin, looking incredibly relieved to have something to do, fetched some of their spare bedding from the van, draping a blanket over her and Melanie, another over Danny and Tim, and then offering one to Jon, who shook himself and rasped out, “Ah, I’m, I’m fine.”

Georgie looked over at him, attention caught by the tone of his voice. “Jonathan Sims,” she said sharply. 

He blinked uncertainly, shoulder hunching at her tone, but she made sure he was looking right at her when she said firmly, “Don’t you _dare_ decide this was your fault.”

“Um, I- Georgie, that’s not-” she maintained the stare as he shifted uneasily. “I- I mean, I did… bring you all here, and- I should have-”

“Mate,” Gerard interrupted him, “a two-hundred-year-old ghost _emailed you_. That’s fucking bonkers, no way could you have known.”

Jon sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and then wincing. “I suppose.”

“And he wasn’t lying. I mean he did, sort of, own the house? It’s not like you gave your banking details to a Nigerian prince,” Martin added, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and holding it out. 

Jon stared at it blankly. 

“Uh, you have some-” Martin sighed. “Here, just let me-” and then leaned forward and wiped off the blood Jon had just smeared across his face with his cut hand. 

Jon, looking oddly flustered, let him do it, and didn’t protest when Martin wrapped a blanket around him and nudged him over to lean against their van beside Georgie. 

Melanie eyed him sidelong. “Seriously. I’m a damn professional spook hunter, and I didn't twig, okay?”

Gerard snorted. “Sure you are.”

Melanie glared. “Don’t make me come over there.”

“Hey, I’m already convinced you’re bloody hardcore, alright? You told me to set you on fire. Just… uh-” he looked down at Gertrude.

She sighed. “Oh, fine. I suppose we could use the help.”

Sasha leaning against their van, straightened up. “Oh, hey, seriously? I don’t have to be ‘the new kid’ anymore?”

As they finally heard the sound of sirens in the distance, Danny raised his head from Tim’s shoulder and said, “Hey, you guys ever hear about the Covent Garden Theatre?”

  
  


fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out [Grace's brilliant art](https://ggracee.tumblr.com/post/628791061684338688/thank-you-pilesofnonsense-for-letting-me-work-on) and send lots of love her way!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Ghost Hunt UK: The Magnus House | The Audio Drama](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26376892) by [UpPastMyBedtimeReading](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpPastMyBedtimeReading/pseuds/UpPastMyBedtimeReading)




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